Australian hospital accidentally declares 200 people dead

An Australian hospital has apologised "unreservedly" after sending out notices to the doctors of more than 200 patients telling them they had died, instead of that they had been discharged.

The error by Austin Hospital in Melbourne was spotted within hours and the doctors were contacted, but not before at least one had called a family member to express their condolences, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

Austin Health, which runs the hospital, said the notices, which were sent on Wednesday 30 July, were a result of "human error" after changes to a death notification template were saved to the standard discharge template.